And yet more from Flowerpatch exhibition 2023

 My final post about our Flowerpatch Ruby exhibition shows all the smaller wall quilts, etc.

Our Chairman's challenge this year was "Ruby Red" and there were lots of entries. This is a pic of them all -

Iris L excelled herself by making 4 small quilts - she had been inspired by a Flowerpatch evening meeting when we viewed the miniatures from the Quilters Guild Special Interest group. Other entries included wall quilts, cushions, a bottle bag and even a "Ruby Red" cow.

Pippa made two miniature quilts to exhibit. The first is "Spring Flowers" and uses hand dyed cottons.

The second is "Seminole Miniature" and for this Pippa used Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics as they are fine and cut down on the bulk in seams.

Pippa also made a Shibori Quilted Jacket having dyed the fabrics herself.

Karen's wall quilt is called "Lola Llama" - made for her grand-daughter and inspired by a Laura Heine pattern.

Iris M is continuing with her wall quilts representing the months

From left to right and top to bottom they are April - Easter, November - Fireworks, March - Spring Leaves and May - Maypole.

Lois sewed two pictures featuring houses. The first is "Cornwall"

and this is "Amsterdam Remembered".

Jennie used inktense pencils to create the first of her "Little Blue Bird"

and metallic fabric paint for the second.

Many of us made teddy bears this year as Jennie C had donated two huge rolls of fur fabric. I was completely out of my comfort zone with this, but found that I actually enjoyed it! Chris's instructions and tips were brilliant. I'm only sorry that I didn't get a better pic of them having their picnic.

Finally, at our October meeting we gave Children's Hospice South West a cheque for £1500 which was the money raised with our Ruby quilt raffle and sales at the exhibition, etc. Such a good charity to have supported. This is the link if you'd like to read more about them - CHSW

Thank you for reading and happy sewing

Anita x

More Quilts from Flowerpatch 2023

Here are some more quilts from Flowerpatch Quilters, August 2023, exhibition:

This is a very special quilt, made by Marie, for two reasons. It is her first quilt - and what a difficult pattern to be starting with! Also it is in memory of her Father who served in both the Merchant and Royal Navys. Well done, Marie.

Next we have two quilts by Elizabeth. The first is called "Something Blue"

and the second is "Rainbow Moments" - lots of scraps from 20+ years of quilting.

I complimented Elizabeth on her unusual whipped quilting in circles and she said that it was to hide the marking which she couldn't remove!! Now there's one to remember :)

This is Chris's "The Quilt the Grew" - she just couldn't bear to leave any of the cat panels out and the quilt "grew" to accommodate them all.

Here is Anita H's "Round Robin" quilt. she made the centre square and her friends sewed the borders. I love this soft green.

This is a quilt that we made for the Linus Charity. We started it at one of our Flowerpatch evening meetings by sewing the small circles divided into quarters. Once we had all these and the larger quarter circles I sewed the quilt together. I quilted along the seams by machine and around the circles by hand.

Next is Iris L's "Buds and Blooms" which is based on a design by Angela Attwood

and Margaret's "Hearts and Flowers" made for a grand-daughter and quilted by Sandy Chandler

These two are both made by Ruth. the first is a "Softly Falling Snow" - a pattern by Fi Bowman

and this is the "Alphabet Quilt" which is a pattern by Helen Godden and is painted using inktense pencils.

Finally two from Jo - "Zarafa" the giraffe who I just had to look up on Wikipedia having not heard of him before. It's a wonderful, true tale which you can read about with this link: Zarafa

and a medallion quilt "Regency Blues"

Two lovely quilts both beautifully quilted by Sandy Chandler.

More smaller sewing from the exhibition next time

Anita x

Larger Quilts at Flowerpatch 2023

 Here are some of the larger quilts on display at Flowerpatch Quilters exhibition in August 2023.

This is Liz's "Colourful Host of Diamonds"  - a cheerful quilt made during lockdown

and her "Hearts 'n' Flowers" - inspired by one of Jo Colwill's quilts and machine pieced by Sandy Chandler of the Quilting Company.

Here is Melody's "Windermere" - a Di Hall Ford pattern and a quilt made in her memory. It was also beautifully quilted by Sandy

and another of Melody's quilts "Coming Home" - made for her grandson who is a Liverpool FC fan.

Two quilts that couldn't be more different!!

This is Pippa's "Mosaic Garden" - designed by Louisa Goult of Sewmotion. I love Pippa's wavy line quilting to contrast with the squareness of the design.

Here is Ellen's "Lockdown Squares" which was quilted by The Quilt Room in Dorking. I love the graduated grey fabric as a border.

This is Ruth's "Countryside Animals" which was inspired by a Janet Clare monthly quilt-a-long. It is a very large quilt and I apologise that I couldn't get quite far enough away for a good photo! Ruth free motion quilted it with her domestic machine.

One from Jennie: "It kept growing bigger!" - this was machine quilted by Jennie on her Bernina

and finally, "Christmas" by Anita H - a quilt that she designed herself.

Lots of lovely little details in this quilt.

Yet more quilts to come next time - Anita S xx

Flowerpatch Ruby Exhibition 2023

Last month Flowerpatch Quilters held their Ruby exhibition at Cowslip Workshops. It was quite different from our usual exhibitions as we were celebrating our 40th year which gave us the opportunity to be nostalgic and indulgent. Here are some of the older quilts that were on display:

These two are very special as they were both sewn by Flowerpatch members in the 1980s and each block is signed by the maker in embroidery, so it's a lovely reminder of past members.

This basket of flowers quilt was sewn in the early 1990s and still looks so fresh. It is a past charity quilt and was won at the time by Karen who is still a member today.

This photo shows, from left to right, another member's raffle quilt in "Snowball" design, Dawn's quilt with drunkard's path and applique wildflower designs, Dy's Hawaiian Quilt and a quilt made by Daphne Turner who was a founder member of Flowerpatch.

Flowerpatch Quilters started as a group in the summer of 1983 in the garden (the flower patch) of Daphne and her husband, Pepe, at Windmill Patchwork shop in Launceston.

These next two (L to R) are made by Dy and by Margaret. So different and both beautiful. On tables in the foreground are a few of the many small items that we have made as challenges over the years.

There were many more that I didn't get to photo, but these last two are both past charity quilts. The first from 2011 called "Forget-me-not" and won by Melody.

and the second from 2018 called "Rainbow" which was won by Ellen.

I have written about "Rainbow" in two previous blog posts. You can read about it here and here

On a table in front of the quilt are photos and other memorabilia from the past four decades of Flowerpatch Quilters.

More pics from the exhibition to come. 

Until then, happy stitching - Anita x

Flowerpatch Quilters Exhibition 2023

After a super evening at our recent Flowerpatch Quilters meeting showing the quilts etc. that will be in our coming exhibition, we look forward to the beginning of August with much excitement and anticipation.

Our exhibition will be at Cowslip Workshops again this year and runs from Tuesday 1st August to Saturday 5th August, 10am to 4pm each day. We're raising money for Children's Hospice South West - such a worthwhile charity "making the most of short precious lives". This is the charity quilt that we have made to raffle:

It has been quilted by Sandy Chandler of 'The Quilting Company'.

The colour of our quilt is very relevant as Flowerpatch have been going as a group for 40 years. This year's Ruby exhibition is a celebration of our many years of quilting and friendship. 

Ruby Quilt comprises 3 main blocks:

block1 is made from 2" squares and 2" half square triangles

block2 is made from 3"squares and 3" half square triangles  with a nine-patch in the middle using 2" squares

block3 is made from 3"sqares and 3" half square triangles. It is turned through 90 degrees for some of the blocks

Around the edge are rectangular blocks which are halves of blocks 1&3.

Here is a reminder of our exhibition dates, etc. 

Hope to see you there

Anita xx

Block Printing and Slow Stitching

 We had a super evening at Flowerpatch Quilters recently when Iris L. brought along her wooden printing blocks and paints so that we could all have a go at printing on some calico. Iris explained how to do it - that you shouldn't use too much paint or press too hard on the blocks and have a soft board underneath, thus avoiding splurges!

Iris had given me a few prints at the previous meeting and I had great fun thinking of ways to use them in sewing.

The little hedgehog is on a needle case, there is a greetings card, easy peasy pouches for specs and some slow stitched hangings.

I so enjoyed making the small hangings that I made four of them. They are all approx 6" wide. The first was using the poppy prints:

The next one used two of the sunflower prints:

Then I did a very blue one:

Finally I used the two prints that I printed during the Flowerpatch meeting to make this one:

I started each little hanging with a layer of wadding and a piece of curtain fabric on top. I laid the print, or prints, on top of this and then added various rectangular scraps of fabric (I save lots of tiny pieces from other projects), overlapping them until the background fabric was more or less covered. So as not to overwhelm the prints I tended to use pale fabrics. Once I was happy with the layout I tacked the fabric pieces down with big stitches. Then it's just a case of stitching to hold the edges of the rectangles down and adding some embellishment. I did some stitching on the prints each time, but without obliterating all the printing. Sometimes it's hard to know when it's finished! I laid my work on a another piece of fabric without trimming, marked the edges, machine zigzagged all the way around and trimmed close as I dared to the stitches.

Here are some pics of a few details.

I have put three of the hangings together, but the blue one didn't look quite right with them.

I used the buttonhole edges of shirts to sew them in a line (I have no idea why I was saving these - maybe to tie a plant to a stake in the garden!) and these also make hanging loops at the top.

Happy Slow Stitching - Anita x

A Little Slow Stitching

I've recently finished sewing this small wall hanging in raw-edge applique and stitch, and I'm pretty pleased with it. It's been so nice to work with jolly, bright colours while the days are still short and the weather is dull.

It measures approximately 9" x 11" finished.

I started by drawing the design on some paper, traced the flower shapes onto freezer paper, cut out the shapes, ironed them onto the right side of my chosen fabrics and cut them out. I only cut out the biggest 'circles' of the large flowers and just roughly cut the edge off these paper patterns for the smaller 'circles' as I went.

I sewed the stripey blue background fabric to some wadding with free motion machine quilting and marked the flower positions and stalks with a frixion pen, using my paper design and a light box.

I sewed the stalks of the large flowers first using a folded strip of fabric held in place with green thread across it.

Then I did the large flower top left sewing the fabric down with whatever stitches took my fancy.

Next came the yellow flower at top right, which I sewed into position with matching thread, leaving the finishing touches until later as I was excited to do big flower no.2 in the centre.

I really like the way the white dots on the green fabric show through the stitches.

After this I attached the final two yellow flowers and couched down some thick cotton thread in green for the stems. The red stitch across the top of the flowers is fly stitch.

A bit more embroidery to the yellow flowers before I sewed some brown background stalks with whipped running stitch and more fly stitch.

My picture is framed with a narrow flange of bright orange, a wide plain green border and brown binding.

In this photo you can see the stem of a large flower.

It makes me smile every time I see it - what more can you ask?!

Happy stitching

Anita x